These Are Days

Blessed & lucky.

Some people are rejuvenated by the ocean, the sea air. Although lovely, to be sure, I'm moved more by the mountains and the trees. For our wedding anniversary this year, we took a day off and made a run for the hills. A simple picnic and a long walk with the dogs at Big Trees. Incredibly beautiful always, this time of year Mother Nature really puts on a show, we felt so lucky to be among the trees and trails in their autumn grandeur.

Afterwards, a cold beer and a pizza at Snowshoe Brewing Company with the pups using their best smiles and most dignified looks to beg little bites of crust. We're total suckers for these faces.

I'm looking forward to another trip up soon after the rains start for yet another incarnation of that gorgeous forest and those magnificent trees.

Wishing you a wondrous weekend.

oxo,

Lisa

Part II: Drifting

Hey Folks, welcome back, thank you for sticking with me here.

Part II: Drifting

I last left off tell you about a friend that was killed right here in my home town while he was out taking a ride on his motorcycle.

Carl was a good guy, and taken far, far too soon. He was 33 years old, he just got married in March, and he was a daddy of a five year old little girl. To say that he'll be missed is a gross understatement.   

In all honesty, Carl and I weren't super close in the present day, I wish that'd been different, but we always stopped to say hello when we'd see each other around town or at the farmers market. I first met Carl back when we were just kids, maybe 1983-1984. My best friend's mom and Carl's moms were very close friends and as a result, Carl was around a lot when we were little. I remember him as a sweet little guy, very little, I think he was about 3-4 years old when we first met, he was adorable.

The week between Carl's death and his funeral was sad one. Gutted for those he leaves behind, his new bride and his daughter, and all those who loved him, I couldn't shake that drifting, discombobulated feeling.

The fact that he was just going about his business, taking a ride, enjoying the summer - doing the same thing I was doing the night he was killed just breaks my heart. This could have just as easily been me.

It's unfair. And I know, I know that life is unfair, but somethings are just unfathomable and seem so meaningless. Why? Why did this happen?

Carl's funeral service was last Friday. There were hundreds of people in attendance. A reunion of sorts, the worst kind. So many familiar faces, friends and family, all wracked with grief.

I know that for as long as I live, I will never forget the sound of Carl's five year old daughter, crying sorrowfully, sobbing and calling out "I want my daddy!" in the church that afternoon, or the wave of fresh sorrow that crashed over everyone who heard it, like a physical punch to the chest. It was just as horrible as it sounds.

But there was goodness too, funny stories and memories of those who loved him.

After the service a group of about a dozen of us gathered for a meal, not ready to let each other go just yet. Then later, we gathered at the home of a friend. We talked, we watched the kids play, we thought about him.

The next day, I felt numb. Wrung out. 

On Sunday I decided I needed to clear my head, to shake loose some of the sadness clinging to me. I needed to be outside, so I packed a backpack and my dogs and headed to the hills for a while. I needed to get some air and be in nature.

I went to a place my brothers and I used to go to a lot and walked and walked and walked. Took a few photos, and said goodbye to Carl.

You can't stop, you can only move forward.

I don't know what was in that guy's head as he was driving though town that evening, I don't know why he didn't see Carl's bike. Maybe he was distracted, maybe he was drunk (they're looking into that and news of such has been excruciatingly slow), but whatever the reason, he killed someone who wasn't doing anything wrong, someone who was out for a cruise, who should have gone home to his wife and little girl, all because he wasn't paying attention. Lyndzi and Nevaeh's lives will never be the same.

Please, please be careful out there friends. Be present behind the wheel. Take that extra second when you're driving to look in your mirrors, over your shoulder and entering intersections, lives really do depend on it.

Love to you all,
Lisa

Nature Break

Hi All! Did you have a nice weekend?

We had the opportunity to get out of town and up to the mountains yesterday for a much needed nature break and time with my family. We met up with them at Kirkwood Lake where they'd been camping for the weekend. The weather was gorgeous and it's so pretty up there, thought I'd share a few pictures.

Kirkwood Lake

Handsome hubby.

Me & the pooches.

I would have loved to go for a swim! Alas... unprepared.

This fallen tree was gigantic as were the mushrooms growing all along it's sides.

We enjoyed a nice long nature walk with the dogs.

This was Boswell's first time out in nature and he did great!

Kayakers on the lake. 

And the main reason for our excursion, this handsome fellow!

Happy Birthday Josiah! You're the best 10 year old I know!

♥

Hope your weekend was wonderful, too!

oxo,

Lisa

New Leaf, New Life and Quiet Moments

This intricate and wonderful blackwork embroidery piece was made for me in for the most recent Phat Quarter Swap, by Helenstacy. The theme of this swap was "It's not the end of the world".

It's called "New Leaf, New Life". I love it. So simple, so striking.

One tiny gold leaf makes a big impact.

I'm still working on the piece for my partner. I'm very nearly finished but I need to get a move on, my little embroidery will be taking a long trip from California all the way to New Zealand.

Other than the daily grind and a few yet to be revealed embroidery projects, it's been pretty quiet around these parts. I've been enjoying these cold, quiet moments. Evenings spent trying to will winter to stay around a little longer with candles, and fires and my nose buried in books...

Making every hearty, winter soup I can lay my hands on. This one, which doesn't look so nice has been one of the best so far, home made Split Pea with ham.

I'm trying to hold out, this winter had been far too short. Seasons do not wait for any man, spring is coming, and coming fast. I've been trying my best to capture it with my on going photo project.

56/365

57/365

Nature will out.

But, oh, for a few more nights of long, cold, dark...

The seasons press on...

New leaf, new life.

Hope you're all having a lovely weekend.

oxo,

Lisa

Everybody's favorite... Vacation photos!!

Hello Lovies!
Thanks so much for all your kind comments on my toy drop! It was really a fun thing to do and I'm looking forward to doing more of them. I need to work on gender neutrality though... As cute as the Tea Time Teddy was, it was definitely girly. I want to make things for the toy drop that would be nice for either a boy or a girl to find.

So, I'm back! Bet'cha didn't even know I was gone, right? Sneaky~sneaky! Sean and I just returned from a vacation road trip, we went north and visited Oregon, Washington and a wee bit of northern Idaho. I thought I'd tell y'all a little about it and share some vacation photos, hope you don't mind too much. If you don't already know, please be warned, I am a very snap-happy person. Translation, I take a lot of pictures. On this vacation I think my camera said there were about 600. Hehe... yeah... In all fairness, I've deleted a lot of them for one reason or another, and I'll try to limit them here to only a few from each city. "Try" being the key word.

Settle in, lovies. This is the mother of all posts.

Ashland!

First place we visited was Ashland, Oregon. Beautiful, lots of hippies! I loved it.

This was the view from our hotel, good morning Oregon!

Mmm, breakfast in a park. A marion-berry muffin and a cuppa coffee overlooking a little stream right in the middle of town, lovely way to start the day.

Ashland is the home of the Shakespeare Festival, it's a terrific little town, wish we had more time to visit and see a play...

I liked this little statue. I couldn't get a very good picture of it, it was much more beautiful in person.

"Whoa, nelly! Let's go in here, ok hunny, ok? I won't be long, I promise!"... sound familiar?

What a great little store! Super friendly ladies at this store, I felt right at home. I found a few things I just hadda have.

Some very pretty variegated floss, and coordinating wool felt. I think I'm going to make myself a little pin cushion with these. And some silk ribbon so I can try my hand at ribbon embroidery. I've wanted to try it for a while, but I've never seen the silk ribbon in stores before. I'm excited to give it a go. And an oblong hoop. My local JoAnn's just has the usual round ones, I like the shape of this one and think I'll use it a lot.

Have slushie, will travel. Goodbye Ashland, helloooo Portland!

Portland!

Our Portland stay was quite short as we were mostly just passing through, just one night and most of the following day. We stayed right in the heart of downtown Portland at The Benson Hotel, which is beautiful and has a history all it's own. We were however able to have a nice dinner and beers out at the Deschutes Brewery, which was only a few blocks from our hotel and a walking tour of "Underground Portland" the next afternoon. 

Here are a few snaps from our visit to Portland.

Beautiful arched windows, downtown.

The famous Oregon sign. Our tour guide told us that they put a red light on the deers nose at Christmas, isn't that cute?

Part of a memorial to the Japanese Americans inturned during WWII. It's such a beautiful, yet sad piece.

Voodoo Donuts. This isn't your average donut shop. Now, I love a good donut as much as the next person and I was all in for a donut from this place based only on the heavenly scent wafting from it's doors, but uh... it was like 4:00 in the afternoon, and you see that line? There were about 25 people waiting outside just to get inside... for a donut... at 4:00 in the afternoon... yeah.

Can you guess what this is? It's a VERY large acupuncture pin. No really, it is. And I think this pin was about 25 feet tall! This is actually an art installation piece  for the Portland Acupuncture Project and there are several of them placed strategically around the city in order to "heal" certain ailments within the community and the land. It's an interesting concept, and I hope that it has some effects. Without disparaging our host city, it's evident that Portland is in need of some healing.

As much as I want to say that I loved our time in Portland, after all this is the hometown of Alicia Paulson! Portland was not my favorite place, which was a bit disappointing. I had such fond memories of my long ago visit... I know that all big cities have their problems, and we were in the heart of downtown which is where those problems are most visible, just seemed a lot seedier than I recalled. I'd certainly like to visit again, I know I didn't see the best Portland has to offer. I only hope that the next time I visit, I have more time to explore and a local remind me of what makes that city so great.

Seattle! You are beautiful!

Not a lot to have to explain here, I'll let the photos do the talking (mostly).

A five minute walk from our hotel!

Windy!

The cups say "Space Needle, A great place to chill" - I couldn't agree more.

(fyi - these day & night pictures were taken on different days, we didn't really camp out there all day long, hehe.)

The Experience Music Project, they were already closed when we visited (insert sad face here).

Can you believe that building? It's incredible. I took A LOT of pictures of it.

This was an amazing, happily accidental find. I wish I could share the sound with you guys. 1000 cast iron wind chimes hung in the trees in a small area at the Theater Commons. The sound, such a gentle tinkling... wonderful to sit still and close your eyes for just a few moments...

Our hotel in the Queen Ann district. Another hotel with a lot of history. Wonderful, except for the lack of elevator.

Too much luggage and too many stairs.

Ahh, this is what I needed. A good strong cuppa tea. Blackberry Ceylon. Yum.

Only bummer about this experience... the $43 parking ticket we got for parking at Safeway while I had a quick cuppa. Lame.

Need a tea break yourself?? I don't blame you, this is a long post... go on... I'll wait.

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Spokane!

Near nature, near perfect. That's their slogan. Spot on if you ask me. I don't know what I was expecting, but I was kind of holding my breath for this leg of the journey. I did a lot of homework on this town, research for a life shift that Sean and I are starting to contemplate... What we found was a lively town full of friendly, down to earth people, good food, great coffee, beautiful scenery, gorgeous affordable housing, animal friendly, tons of parks. Yep, looks like a nice place to live.

Manito Park

Spokane River

River Park

4th of July

Gondola rides!

Look at that face! He's tryin' to scare me.

Now normally I'm not usually afraid of heights, but...

A little plastic cart dangling over this would be enough to frighten anyone, right?

Actually, it was not that scary, hehe... suUure.

Totally false advertising here, people. There was no tea party... just some old guy talking about taxes and other boring stuff. Sheesh, total rip off. I stamped my feet and whined like a baby.

We are everywhere.

We liked it here. I'm already planning another trip back. I'd like to see this city in all seasons, especially winter. I think that might be the hardest for this California girl.

Couer d'Alene!

In the early afternoon of the 4th of July we drove over an visited Couer d'Alene. It's a nice little town, reminds me of Lake Tahoe. There was a large parade downtown so we drove around the lake. It was cold and windy. There was almost no one in the water, and most of the folks on the beach were wearing jackets or wrapped in a blanket. Brr. Looked like most of the stores were closed due to the holiday, so I'll be honest, we never even stopped. We just poked around and looked from the windows of the truck.

Wowza, that place is gorgeous.

Whoa! That dude isn't wearing a helmet!

Neither is he!

This is such a foreign concept to me. Helmet laws have been in place in California since I was a kid.

It's weird for me to see someone without one.

Haven't seen this in a long while either! You can't do this in California, it's illegal.

De plane, de plane! We watched this plane land on the water, how neat!

Later that night back at our hotel, we watched the fireworks from our balcony...

Oooh!

Ahh!

The fireworks setting on my camera is trippy.

Baby, we're coming home!

We left Spokane the morning of July 5th and drove straight through until we got home, 860 miles.

This is along the Columbia River that seperates Washington & Oregon.

Oh look, a parasailer. Well, that was fun.

Then it mostly looked like this for a loooooooooong time.

We finally saw a sign for a little park and decided to stop, stretch and make a sandwich before we continued on. When we pulled in, we saw this sign...

Well that's a little disconserting.

Ooh, I get it now.

See those tiny dots on the upper left? That was a family of about 10 people, which would make this a very looong drop. Yes, doggies are best left in the vehicle, like the nice sign says.

Ok, back in the truck!

That there is Lake Kalamath in southern Oregon.

Not too long after we saw this,

Mount Shasta! Yes, we're almost back to California!

Home! Home! Home!

We arrived back home at about 12:30am, we left Spokane around 9am the previous morning...

That was a long drive.

Our dogs were almost as excited to see us as we were to see them. The cats were indifferent.

My mom stayed here at our place during our stay, she's the best housesitter/dog & cat watcher/garden waterer, ever!

Look what grew in my little garden while I was away!

These were tiny when I left! 10 days, a little heat and some faithful watering was all it took for veggies to blow up like balloons! Thanks Mom!

Ok boys and girls, that about wraps up my summer vacation! Was that the longest post in the history of posts, or what?? Only too about three hours to write, upload and link this baby, whew! I thought about breaking this post up into several, but I want to talk to you guys about other stuff, so I decided to make one giant vacation post and get it done. Hope you didn't mind, and that maybe you enjoyed it a little.

What are y'all doing this summer? Any vacation plans?? Remember to take lots of photos!

oxo,

Lisa

p.s. Vacationing far from home got me wondering where YOU all are from... Please leave a comment and tell me where you're reading this, I'd really love to know!